Various surgical procedures are routinely carried out intravascularly or intraluminally. For example, in the treatment of vascular disease, such as arteriosclerosis, it is a common practice to access the artery and insert an instrument (e.g., a balloon or other type of catheter) to carry out a procedure within the artery. Such procedures usually involve the percutaneous puncture of the artery so that an insertion sheath may be placed in the artery and thereafter instruments (e.g., catheters) may pass through the sheath to an operative position within the artery. Intravascular and intraluminal procedures unavoidably present the problem of stopping the bleeding at the percutaneous puncture after the procedure has been completed and after the instruments (and any insertion sheaths used therewith) have been removed. Bleeding from puncture sites, particularly in the case of femoral arterial punctures, is typically stopped by utilizing vascular closure devices.
Prior closure devices, such as the ones described in the above-mentioned patents, place an anchor within the vessel and position a sealing plug at the tissue puncture site. Deployment of the sealing plug involves ejecting the plug from within a device sheath and compaction down to an outer surface of the tissue puncture using a compaction member. The compaction procedure usually does not commence until the device sheath (within which the compaction tube is located) has been removed so as to expose the compaction tube for manual grasping. Under certain conditions, removal of the sheath prior to compacting the sealing plug may cause the sealing plug itself to be displaced proximally from the tissue puncture, which may hinder subsequent placement of the sealing plug, and may result in only a partial seal and associated late bleeding from the tissue puncture. Advancements are possible for the mechanism that deploys and compacts the sealing plug at the site of a tissue puncture.
Typically, the sealing plug and anchor are connected together with a suture that is also connected to the mechanism that deploys the anchor and sealing plug. Tension in the suture is usually released after compacting the sealing plug to permit disconnection of the suture from the deployment mechanism. Improvements are also possible for the devices and methods used to release the suture from the deployment mechanism.